Her new parents were a laborer and his wife, a hardworking woman who took in wash. They slaved day and night but could never afford anything but the basics. There was never a penny left over, never a birthday present, never a gift at Christmas. There was love but literally nothing more.
She hated her new last name – Denu. She wanted the name on her amended birth certificate, the one the orphanage gave her new adoptive parents. She was Adriana Apostol Creed. From the time she was eight she was using that name, and her parents didn’t object.
“Apostol.” Nicu had rolled the name off his tongue. “A beautiful name. I like it. From now on, that’s your nickname.”
As a teenager Adriana supplemented the family’s meager income by working after school as a fortune-teller. She was strikingly attractive – worldly, dark and sultry even at fourteen – and most people assumed she was older. She knew how to entice men to pay more than they intended. When the beautiful girl stroked their hands softly as she whispered their fortunes in a sexy tone, the men gave her big tips. It was completely aboveboard, but there was plenty of innuendo. She had the charms men wanted more of, and soon her income was as much as her father’s.
At sixteen she left school to work full time. A year later her parents perished in a fiery car crash, the victims of a drunk driver going the wrong way on a divided highway at night. She mourned, she grieved, she cried, and then she carried on.
Buoyed by a small life insurance policy her father had been given by his employer, Adriana enrolled at the local university. It lasted awhile, but education simply wasn’t important to her. The only thing about her collegiate experience that interested her was the gypsy lover she’d met. They were young, crazy, passionate and intensely sexual partners. Three years older than Adriana, he was a driven individual who craved success. He spoke often of how he intended to break out of Romania and become a wealthy banker in the West.
They talked of his father’s death years ago at the hands of the police, which fostered his deep hatred for the government. He was often a part of protest rallies – he even threw rocks now and then – but he managed to avoid arrest. Despite his efforts to get Adriana involved in his political beliefs, she never joined him. She simply didn’t care about such things.
At the end of her second year in university, her lover graduated and that magical experience was over. He moved away to seek a career, and Adriana quit school, expecting to never hear from him again. She opened a shop in Bucharest city center, lived behind it in two comfortable rooms, and went back to her old job as a fortune-teller.
She wrapped up her life story without telling Nicu that five years ago she’d begun selling her body along with her prognostication skills. He didn’t need to know that; besides, she was his companion now. She had left that life behind. She was well set, thanks to Nicu.
As good as things were for her financially, they soon became even rosier. One day recently when they were out for one of their frequent lunches, he suggested, “Let’s go by my bank. There’s something I want to do.” They met with a vice president, and Nicu added her name to his safety deposit box access card. The officer excused himself for a moment and then returned with a key for Adriana.
As they walked home Nicu explained, “There are things in there that will be good for you to have once I’m gone. My only heirs are three worthless grandchildren whom I haven’t seen in years. There’s plenty for them – I have put aside a decent sum for a rainy day and my house is paid for. I bequeath to you everything that’s in the box. Along with other things, there are two books. Take everything whenever you want – just make sure it’s cleaned out before I die so my heirs don’t grab what’s left. You’re not mentioned in my will, and since they have no idea what I own, they’ll never miss anything. What’s in the box is all yours, but you must promise this – never, ever tell anyone that the things in the box came from me. Don’t tie anything back to me or they’ll take it away from you.”
She hoped he didn’t notice her involuntary shudder. Whatever was in there must have been something from the war. His words scared her, but more than that she was curious.
He added, “Keep the two books together. They’re important, but we’re finished talking about them. Don’t mention them again to me. I’m absolved of my sins. You heard my confession.”
Adriana struggled not to dwell on what might be in the box, but she quickly assured herself it was normal to wonder what he’d considered important enough to lock away in a bank vault. It was only natural human instinct to be curious. Anyone would want to know.
She stood impatiently on the sidewalk outside the bank before opening time the next morning. She’d brought along a cloth shopping bag, just in case. Nicu told me I could take everything whenever I wanted. Maybe today there would be something to take. Soon she was in the vault with the same bank officer they’d dealt with yesterday. He inserted his key, directed her to do the same, and he pulled out a metal container the size of a small microwave. He struggled and huffed as he carried it to an adjacent private room.
“It’s very heavy,” he wheezed, slamming it onto a table. “Call the guard when you’re finished and let him replace it for you.”
Once he had gone, Adriana lifted the lid and looked inside. First she saw the two books Nicu had mentioned. One was a thick leather-bound volume with a bold swastika on the cover, and the other was a worn copy of Adolf Hitler’s manifesto Mein Kampf. She set them aside then drew a deep breath as she stared at what else there was.
Oh my God! Oh my God! She needed a fix. Her heart was racing as her mind struggled to comprehend why he’d done this.
Three-fourths of the way to its top the box contained neatly stacked gold bars, each carrying the imprints Reichsbank and 1 kilo. She recognized the name of the bank; it had been closed by the Allied forces after World War II. Before that it was owned and operated by the National Socialist Party. The Reichsbank was Adolf Hitler’s bank, the bank of the Nazis.
Adriana removed enough bars to see to the bottom. She counted twenty-three in all. She had no idea what they were worth, but she was certain the old man had just given her a secure future.
She dropped one bar and the books into her bag, closed the box and called the guard.
——
When she got home she tossed the bag on the table and went to her kitchen to prepare things. Once everything was ready she sat on the couch, sucked the liquid into a syringe, crossed her leg on the opposite knee and inserted the needle into the skin between her toes. This was the second time today and the heavenly rush was instantaneous. She frequently told herself she hated heroin, but she didn’t stop. When she was doing this – when she was shooting up – she loved it. It made her calm, happy, at peace with the world.
There’s really nothing wrong with it, she mused idly, reassuring herself the drug hadn’t become her master. A few times in the past she’d tried to prove she wasn’t an addict. Those times were always in winter, when there were no customers for either of her services – caressing a client’s palm or something else of his. When the brutal snows came and the sidewalks were icy, people stayed indoors. They didn’t come to visit the sultry gypsy. Without money she couldn’t buy heroin, so she’d make a decision to stop using.
The outcome was always the same. She would lie in bed in utter misery, racked with fever and stomach pain, then suddenly she’d get relief. Her comfort didn’t come from beating her addiction. In fact, it was just the opposite. Just as things got as bad as she could handle, she’d hear a wonderful sound – the tinkle of the tiny bell on her front door. A customer! Desperately hoping it was a man – most of her patrons were, thank God – she would quickly fix her hair, let him in, seat him at the table in the front room, tell his fortune and excite him until he paid her for sex. In the summer she could pick and choose her clients for the back room. In the bleak gray winter she took whoever came through the door. He could have been the Hunchback of Notre Dame – at this point all she wanted was money. Fast. And somehow
it always came through just in time.
The fortune-teller’s own fortunes had turned remarkably better on the day she met Nicu Lepescu. The old man gave her money from the very start – payment for her prognostications at first, then gifts “to help you get along,” he’d said. She wore the beautiful things he gave her until the day she had heard his confession. Once she understood, she was overwhelmed with guilt. Whose jewelry had this been? Was this bracelet ripped from a proud woman’s arm just before she was ushered into the gas chamber? Adriana never asked; she simply stopped wearing the jewelry.
He lavished so much on her that she’d have done anything for him – whatever his aging mind could come up with – but all he wanted was companionship. He genuinely likes me, she thought. All I need do is take care of him and pretend to like him in return. Seeing him every day as a grandfather merely wanting someone to talk to, she found it impossible to believe he could have done those things he told her about. But who in his right mind would fabricate such a horror story about himself? She just kept her mouth shut, smiled and laughed with him, and made him comfortable.
Now she held a gold bar in her hand, the first one she’d ever touched. She was overcome with conflict. This time Nicu hadn’t just given her a Jewish lady’s bracelet. He’d given her a boxful of gold bars. Exciting thoughts of how much money there might be flooded her mind as she pushed back the inevitability of what the gold represented. Everyone had heard the horrific stories of how the Nazis accumulated gold.
She went to bed, replacing the negative thoughts with plans, hopes and dreams. If this was the key to her future, she would accept the good luck her friend had bestowed upon her.
The next morning Adriana left early. She had to be at Nicu’s at ten, but there was one thing she had to know. She found a different bank with a teller window offering gold for sale. She took the bar from her pocket and asked, “How much can I get for this?”
The young clerk looked at the name on the bar. Reichsbank. She saw him raise his eyebrows in surprise, and then he said, “Give me just a moment, please.” He took the bar and turned to a table behind him. She watched as he weighed it and examined it closely, then called an older man over – a supervisor, she presumed. They had a brief, quiet conversation.
The supervisor brought the bar to her and said, “This bar’s quite old. We don’t see many … uh, wartime bars anymore.” He hadn’t used the word Nazi. “If I may ask, where did you get it?”
“I’m sorry, I’m in a bit of a hurry. No time to chat. May I just find out its value?”
He made a computer entry and said, “At today’s exchange rate, one hundred fifty-one thousand five hundred fifty-nine Romanian lei.”
She stood shell-shocked, mouth agape.
“In dollars …?” she managed to gasp.
His fingers flew as he calculated the conversion.
“Thirty-seven thousand four hundred US dollars.”
She couldn’t talk. She was dizzy and needed to go outside in the fresh air. She nodded at the supervisor, put the bar back in her pocket and left. In a daze she walked back to her store, the visit to Nicu put aside for the moment.
Her mind raced with crazy thoughts.
There are twenty-three bars.
That’s–
She was so frazzled she couldn’t do the math in her head. Once she was home, she made the calculation, looked at the answer a dozen times, then sank into a chair, at last understanding what the old man had done for her. He’d done it all. He’d given her a new life.
Eight hundred and sixty thousand dollars.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Where are you? He’s asking for you.” The housekeeper’s words were short and clipped, so full of hatred her feelings couldn’t be mistaken.
“I’m … I’m not well,” Adriana replied, her hand shaking so hard she could barely hold the receiver. “I’ll come later this afternoon.”
“Don’t come if you’re contagious. Don’t make him even sicker than he already is.”
“I won’t. I’m not contagious. I just have–”
Mrs. Radu interrupted sharply. “I could care less what you have. I could care less if you ever come back here. But he wants you. So that’s that. Do it.” She hung up abruptly.
An hour later, fortified by her old friend the needle, Adriana walked into Nicu’s flat, said nothing to the housekeeper, and went straight into the bedroom. She locked the door behind her as usual, and two hours later they emerged. He was dressed for an outing.
“See you later!” He waved breezily to Mrs. Radu as he closed the front door.
They sipped espressos and studied the menu at a tiny sidewalk café. It was two in the afternoon – he said he’d worked up an appetite waiting for her.
“I was worried this morning. Where were you?” he asked pleasantly.
She told him exactly what she’d done, how she’d learned the value of his gift. “Once I realized what you’d done for me, I had to go home because I thought I would faint. Nicu, are you sure…”
He laughed and dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to this old man in years. You’ve given me renewed inspiration, a reason to keep on going and a new appreciation for living. There’s plenty more for my ungrateful grandchildren to fight over – much more than I’ve given you, in fact. Please don’t give it a thought. You deserve the best, my dear.” He paused and took her hand in his. “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”
“All that gold. Where on earth did you get it?”
“Never mind the specifics, girl. The simple answer is I was paid well for the work I did.”
“I can never thank you enough.” She squeezed his hand, maintaining the charade of warmth and tenderness, making her face beam. Only her eyes could have betrayed how she still felt about this maniacal killer – a man who’d admitted he’d callously sent thousands to the gas chamber. She forced a pleasant expression and he never noticed a thing.
“Just being here with me is enough. I know it’s silly, but … I love you, Apostol.”
She kept her composure through lunch and for the remainder of the afternoon. As she prepared to go home, he asked about the books.
“Do you have them?”
“Yes, but I haven’t looked at them.”
“Fine. Just remember to keep them together. That copy of Mein Kampf is special.”
“What’s so special about it? Aren’t there millions of copies around?”
“Trust me. Guard it until you decide you need it. It will help you someday. Now go on home, my dear, and come see me tomorrow.”
Back in her living room, she sat in the dark with the gold bar in her lap. She couldn’t suppress the horrors anymore. Last night she’d managed to replace bad thoughts with rosy pictures of her future. Tonight she faced the truths she knew lay within twenty-three gold bars from the Reichsbank.
I’m as bad as he is …
No. This isn’t about me. He did these things, not me. He somehow got this gold – this tainted Nazi gold. But they’re just gold bars. They didn’t come from the prisoners.
She allowed that thought even though she knew better. The gold came from the concentration camps. She’d heard the stories and seen the horrible pictures: barrels overflowing with gold fillings, rings, and coins. Everyone had. It was what the Nazis did.
Suddenly queasy, she ran to the bathroom. Barely making it, she threw up the toilet lid and retched over and over until there was no more left.
Under the covers she pushed the bad thoughts away, willing herself to fall asleep calmly and dream idyllic dreams.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was well after midnight, but Adriana hadn’t slept five minutes total. The dreams! My God, the dreams! Adolf Hitler himself handed her a gold bar as a grinning Nicu stood next to him. A thousand naked people lined up outside the gas chambers, dropping gold watches and rings into a barrel just before they were ushered inside. The crazy, tormented nightmares wouldn’t stop
, and every time they ended, she awoke in a drenching sweat.
Finally she gave up trying to sleep and brought the diary to bed. She opened it to the first page. The flowing handwriting was unmistakably Nicu’s – she’d seen it often around the flat on one document or another. She lay back on her pillow and read the secret thoughts of a proud man, an officer in the Nazi Party who was on top of his game.
Bucharest, Romania
January 2, 1944
Today is the first at my new post and so I begin a new diary. For two years I have had the pleasure of working under Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of the Birkenau camp at Auschwitz. A storm trooper myself, I was assigned the important duty of building an extension to the existing rail lines to bring prisoners much closer to the gas chambers at Birkenau. This saved much time and was a very efficient way to dispatch individuals whom the Fuhrer considered unnecessary.
After my successful completion of that project, I was handed another. Commandant Hoess himself chose me to repair Krema V, a set of ovens that had broken down and fallen into disrepair. Auschwitz was a busy place and crowded beyond belief. We had to stay on top of things to ensure there was room for incoming prisoners. Within a few short weeks, my crew and I had the crematorium up and running again.
Before Commandant Hoess ended his term at Auschwitz last month, he recommended me for the prestigious position of stationmaster in Bucharest. As I was both a loyal Nazi and a Romanian, he considered me perfectly suited to oversee the movement of troops, prisoners and goods throughout my home country. It is gratifying to serve the Reich and to be recognized by my superior officers.
Heil Hitler!
Last week I returned home from Poland. I moved into a new flat near the city center, more in keeping with my new position and salary, and today I am officially the commander of Bucuresti Gara de Nord – the Bucharest North railway station.
I have been assigned something else – a top-secret mission – one I trust will enrich the Reich and my own standing even more. For understanding I turn to my Fuhrer’s famous book. It will guide me.
The Crypt Trilogy Bundle Page 51